Our darling Everly was born 8 weeks ago and is now a two month old. Can you believe it? I know I sure can’t!

She came in to the world totally new to everything and has come so far in these past 8 weeks. When she was born all she was doing was sleeping and looking around.

At 2 weeks old she had her first bath when her umbilical stump fell off. She’s been to the State Fair and even back to her birth place for a followup appointment with the midwife who delivered her.

She’s learned our scents and has really bonded with us and adjusted to our home (pets and all). She learned breastfeeding and has grown so darn much.

She now smiles and imitates some of the faces we make a her. She is experimenting with different vocalizations and is making many more sounds. She’s even rolling over, holding her head up and trying out standing these days.

She’s getting the hang of playing and really enjoys anything musical. She loves when we sing or play music and she is great when the marching band plays music at my colorguard rehearsals.

It’s been a whirlwind 8 weeks for all of us but now it seems like she’s always been with us and we are comfortably in a groove. It’s like we’ve always been parents.

Happy 2 month birthday sweet Everly!

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I’ve got plenty of things I should be doing like cleaning house, finishing up building the cat house, packing, crocheting etc. I just can’t muster the energy to do any of it.

I was at least able to get some blog posts written up in advance for the weekend since we’ll be off doing other things. Like seeing the midwife and celebrating my birthday…

Yeah, I’ll be 27 on Friday- the first day of spring. Happy birthday to me. I am sad to not have friends and family to spend my day with but N and I are doing are damnedest to have a good time!

He booked us dinner reservations at The Melting Pot (my favorite!) so that will be nice, plus we’ll be driving to The Farm to see Pamela so the car trip will be fun. Getting out of the house is always nice right?

I am excited to have some fun birthday plans, I am also pretty excited to be sealing the deal on our new place. I am bubbling with excitement but none of it is showing externally, can I blame the pregnancy hormones?

Tater is kicking and pushing like crazy right now and I would like to capture a video of it to share with you guys, problem is every time I turn the camera on she stops. The TV guy and the performer are going to have a camera shy child, nice huh?

This morning Tater and I awoke to the noisy trash truck on our street. She was jumping and moving away. The books are right, she really is starting to respond to sounds now.

Well I am off to nap, happy hump day all!

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We headed out to the Grand Canyon Deer Farm that is just west of Flagstaff on old route 66, then we stopped in at Pine Country Restaurant where they are famous for their yummy pie. We had a nice day out and about then we headed back into Flagstaff, stopped at Bookmans to trade in some stuff and get some movies.

Once we got home from our outing N opened his awesome green friendly birthday gift. I made a red velvet cake (from scratch) for N’s birthday and my famous moist roasted chicken for dinner. We had a very nice day together. I snapped some photos to share with ya!

Here is a photo of the red velvet cake I made, yes it was from scratch! Woot, go me!

Here are some photos of the deer and other animals at the deer farm.

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First, I compiled a list of the plants I got, plugged them in to my Dave’s Garden Journal with photos so I could remember what got planted where in a few months. It’s so easy to forget what you have and where you put it when you have a garden addiction like I do!

• Peruvian Daffodil (view my dave’s garden journal entry by clicking here) – Is a uniquw white flower with wispy petals and a sweet scent. Related to paperwhites in the narcissus family, can’t survive frosty conditions so it makes a great house plant!
• Summer Sunset Calla Lilies (view my dave’s garden journal entry) – Have green leaves with tiny white spots and orangish/ yellow blooms.
• Anemone/ Grecian Windflower (view my dave’s garden journal entry for these variations: The Admiral, The Governor, St. Brigid and Mr. Fokker ) – These come in a variety of color variations, they look poppy like and are deer resistant.
• Karl Rosenfeld Peony (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –
• Bowl of Beauty Peony (view my dave’s garden journal entry) – Has pink flower petals with cheery yellow and pink centers, plant in feb-march in Arizona.
• Tiger Orange Lily (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –
• Blue Girl Tea Rose (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –
• Intrigue Floribunda Rose (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –

Here is my niece who came with my mom to stay with us for my birthday. She is the most well behaved baby I have ever been around and she loves the camera!

Here we are at Wupatki National Monument inside one of the ruins. I wasn’t quite ready for the photo to be taken (as you can see) but it’s still priceless.

Here is a photo of us eating fondue on my birthday. It was yummy and so much fun!

We took my mother and niece out to Grand Falls for fun, we of course got a group photo of us in front of the waterfall.

And here are the photos I took of my newly sprouted crocus. They have surfaced in a variety of colors and locations. We are really enjoying their progress and beauty and thought you might also.

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My age doesn’t really coincide with all I have been through, I have much life experience- more than most who are 26. I am more defined by my journey than my age.

My journey over the last year has been a great learning experience for me. I am learning much about “letting go” and opening myself to the possibilities of new experiences. I think I am actually ready for whatever life throws our way, even if it means we will have to move away from our home state, families and the life we have built for ourselves. This has taken me several years to come to terms with and I think I finally have accepted this and am ready for it.

Sometimes you learn all you can in one place and you have to move on to be able to learn and grow more. I am now trusting that life has a plan for us and that we will be taken where we are meant to go. I have no idea what is in store for us but I am ready to be open to whatever it might be. It is kind of exciting actually!

Also, this last year I have been working to heal old wounds and to forgive those who have hurt me so deeply. I remember those deep, nasty encounters and have a hard time forgiving those who were so spiteful to me for no reason. I am still working on this one but feel like I have grown to be more accepting of others. I still wont tolerate people who dump their crap on me but I am growing more accepting of their weaknesses and am now able to feel less hurt by the blows, it’s nothing personal really- they just don’t have the tools to deal with their own issues the way I would.

Um, lets see what else have I learned? Oh, I have learned to be a more positive person. The increase in my positivity (is that a word?) has been the result of me removing myself from negative situations and trying to make those situations I choose to remain in positive ones. I am now able to see the positive in almost anything and I focus most of my energy on it. I feel happier and more satisfied.

The last thing I want to mention is my beginning to learn that in life you cannot be consumed by the expectations of what you life is supposed to be. I struggle with this still but am getting much better as time goes by.

Many people think that they must achieve certain things in a certain order and that is the way it should be. For some this shoe fits, for others it does not and you feel like something is wrong with you.

Life has a plan for each of us and it’s not always what we expect for ourselves. Perhaps the hardest lesson of the year has been to learn to love myself unconditionally and to accept that my journey is different than I expected it to be and that different is okay.

So those are the life lessons that I have come to see this year, some I have mastered- others I have not. Happy birthday to me, now I need to learn more next year!!

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